Man charged with stealing car paint job

STAMFORD -- A man who allegedly drove away from an East Side body shop without paying an $11,000 paint job bill in August was charged this week with first-degree larceny.

Jorge Manuel Ayala, 28, of no known address, was picked up Wednesday by Greenwich police when he was pulled over without a driver's license and police learned there was a warrant for his arrest in Stamford. He was held in lieu of $50,000 bond for arraignment Thursday at state Superior Court in Stamford.

Stamford Police Sgt. Peter diSpagna said the charge against Ayala stems from Aug. 30, when the owner of Barcello's Auto Body on East Main Street called police to report a man had driven off six days earlier without paying his $11,000 bill for a new white interior, exterior paint job.

DiSpagna said the man was supposed to drive the car out of the garage and come right back into the office to pay the bill.

Police investigated, but there was little information they could use to find the man, diSpagna said. The garage had the man's name and a description of the car, but did not have its license plate number or a way to track him.

After Stamford police detectives sent out a description of the vehicle, Stamford patrolman Joseph Duguay spotted the vehicle parked at a gas station off Exit 6 in November, police said. The vehicle was seized and Ayala was questioned, but not taken into custody.

After they took the car, Stamford police also learned Ayala stole the car in a similar fashion from a Bronx, N.Y., used car lot, diSpagna said.

After putting $10,000 in cash down on the $32,000 car, Ayala talked a salesman into allowing him to drive the vehicle to Connecticut to obtain a state driver's license. Ayala, who was to return to the lot in two or three days with the new license and finish the deal, never returned, diSpagna said.

After Stamford police obtained an arrest warrant for Ayala and were negotiating with him to turn himself in during January and February, he claimed he lived in Puerto Rico. But diSpagna said he knows Ayala was working a construction job in Greenwich at that time.